Parking judgment commentary

While motorists across the country will be raising a glass to Mrs Justice Lang
over her ruling on the cost of parking permits, many town hall treasurers
will be sticking pins into a wax effigy of the learned judge.

There is little doubt her ruling is a pretty big victory for drivers it is important to understand not only what the judgment did say, but also what it did not.

She did rule that town halls cannot deliberately profit out of the cash they extract from motorists for parking outside their own homes.

However she did not say that the half billion pound surplus reported by councils in from parking as a whole was illegal, which means they are still entitled to make a profit once fines, car parks and meter charges are thrown into the mix.

But this cash must be used for transport and transport alone, whether it is fixing roads or paying for concessionary bus passes for the elderly and schoolchildren.

Barnet, which has some previous with the High Court over parking, appears to have been – to put it charitably – rather confused about the law.

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Other councils, including those with mammoth surpluses in their parking revenue accounts, have at least maintained the pretence that these profits are coincidental and in doing so have stayed within the law.

They cannot understand what possessed Barnet to ask PWC to factor in the cash raised from permits into their calculations.

At the very least councils who do make a profit from selling residents’ permits may face legal challenges which ultimately could see them being forced to cut how much they charge.

It is this which will be setting off alarm bells in town halls across the country.

But that is probably as far as the good news goes. Councils outside London are lobbying the Department for Transport to push up fines to the same level as in the capital.

Norman Baker, the local transport minister, says he is still considering the plea from some cash-strapped councils who swear blind that they are making a loss from their parking services.

So motorists might, unfortunately, have to leave the champagne in the bottle for a little while yet.